5/15/2015st 780 apologetics one1 apologetics. 5/15/2015st 780 apologetics one2 definition a...
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04/18/23 ST 780 Apologetics One 1
APOLOGETICS
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DEFINITION
• A contemporary expression of classical Roman Catholic apologetics: “An introduction to apologetics usually deals with methodology. . . . We have no particular methodological axe to grind. We try to use commonsense standards of rationality and universally agreed principles of logic in our reasoning. . . . Apologetics defends orthodox Christianity.” Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, 22,25.
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DEFINITION
• A contemporary expression of classical apologetics by Reformed thinkers: “Apologetics is the reasoned defense of the Christian religion. Christianity is a faith, to be sure; but there are reasons for this faith. Faith is not to be confused with reason; but neither is it to be separated from it.” R.C. Sproul, John Gerstner, Arthur Lindsley, Classical Apologetics, 13.
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DEFINITION• A classical expression of Reformed Presuppositional
Apologetics: “Apologetics is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life against the various forms of the non-Christian philosophy of life.” Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 1.
• A contemporary expression of Reformed Presuppositional Apologetics: “Christian apologetics . . . [is] the discipline that teaches Christians how to give a reason for their hope.” John Frame, Apologetics to the Glory of God, 1.
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WHY APOLOGETICS?• I Peter 3:15, “But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts,
always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is within you, yet with gentleness and reverence.”
• Every believer has a hope• There is a reason for this hope• There will be questions re the reason for this hope• The believer must be ready to defend the reason/hope• The believer should use the best defense• The believer must prepare in order to offer the best defense
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WHY APOLOGETICS?
• II Corinthians 10:5, “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”
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CONTEXT OF APOLOGETICS
•Pre-Modern World
•Modern World
•Post-Modern World
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PRE-MODERN WORLD
• Embraced the objectivity of truth– The preference was for a Platonist, or neo-Platonist notion of reality– There is an objective, or external realm that is transcendent– “Reality existed independently of any individual apprehension of it” – For the Christian pre-moderns, this independently existing realm of
transcendence was the mind of God. Erickson, Evangelical Interpretation, 100.
• There was a belief in the referential understanding of language; that is, “language referred to something beyond itself,” Erickson, EI, 100.
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PRE-MODERN WORLD
• There was belief in the “Correspondence Theory of Truth” which asserted that “true ideas are those that accurately correspond to the state of affairs as it is.” Erickson, EI, 100
• In terms of hermeneutics, the pre-modern period accepted that “the meaning of a text was . . . within that text in a rather literal or straightforward fashion. . . . Hermeneutics was in this approach virtually equivalent to exegesis.” Erickson, EI, 101
• The premodern understanding of reality was teleological. There was believed to be a purpose or purposes in the universe.” Erickson, Postmodernizing the Faith, 15
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MODERN WORLD• The Modern Period embraced the objectivity of truth,
although “more nearly Aristotelian.” Erickson, EI, 100• Cartesian rationalism shifted the focus of the rational
order from the objectively, externally true to the thinking subject, thus creating (among other things) a subject-object dualism
• There was belief that creation was orderly and certainty of knowledge was a possibility. Rational structures existed and were identifiable by use of reason and historical investigation.
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PLATO VS. ARISTOTLE
Plato Aristotle
Ideal
Ideal
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MODERN WORLD
• “The way thinkers built up their knowledge and ordered it was commonly foundationalist –i.e., it was presupposed that one must adopt certain foundation’s for one’s knowledge. The foundations might be ‘self-evident’ truths or incontestable sense-date, but only on the basis of such foundations can one certainly infer entire superstructures of thought that are then added to the foundations.” Carson, The Gagging of God, 61.
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MODERN WORLD• Naturalism (materialism) became the primary mode of
explanation, from Hume’s skepticism to Darwin’s evolutionism. Deism is in this sense a betrayal of classical theism and an accommodation to naturalism.
• “Scientific knowledge became the model for all knowledge: date had to be obtained empirically, or they were suspect. Meanwhile religion, relegated to the category of mere opinion, was necessarily based on ‘faith.’” Carson, GOG, 63. An excellent recent example of this is found in E. Wilson, Consilience. Faith is relegated to the realm of private opinion, while reason is the guide to all true knowledge and basis of public discourse.
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MODERN WORLD
• Modernity depends on “meta-narratives” (“universal “narratives” or accounts of reality, of the way things are”) . . . .These “meta-narratives include Marxism, Hegel’s theory of universal spirit, the post-Enlightenment view of progress, and in theology, the view that we should accept as rational in the field of theology only what is judged rational by any reasonable and intelligent person.” Carson, GOG, 63.
• Modernity embraced individualism. “Truth being objective, individuals can discover it by their own efforts.” Erickson, Postmodernizing the Faith, 17.
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POST-MODERN WORLD• Thomas Oden defines the modern period as the period
“from 1789 to 1989, from the Bastille to the Berlin Wall.” For Oden, Postmodernism is used in a chronological sense, that which comes after the modern period. Oden, Requiem, 110,117
• Postmodernism is that which follows modernity; modernity has run its course and is exhausted, intellectually and spiritually bankrupt
• *Oden argues for paleo-orthodoxy, a return to the classical orthodoxy of the early undivided church
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POST-MODERN WORLD
• David Wells: somewhere between the middle of the nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth century we moved from a Eurocentric world to a world centered on America, a period he calls “our Time.” Wells, No Place for Truth, 53-54.
• Our time- based on urbanization and democratic tendencies; it is dependent upon technology and capitalism
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POST-MODERN WORLD
• For Wells, powerful forces bring about sociological modernity, which leads to intellectual postmodernism. Wells, NPFT, 61
• Belief in progress, in transcending the past, leads those who are sociologically modern to become intellectually postmodern. Erickson, PTF, 27.
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POST-MODERN WORLD
• Francis Schaeffer: a “line of despair” bisects history, in Europe around 1890; in the U.S. after 1935. Schaeffer, The God Who is There, CW, I:8.– “This despair began in the discipline of
philosophy, and spread successively to art, music, general culture, and finally, theology.” Erickson, PTF, 65.
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POST-MODERN WORLD
– The roots of despair began with Hegel and his dialectic, an attack on the older rational model
– The meaning of life can no longer be dealt with in terms of a rational explanation, but instead “the real things of life” must be dealt with “by a nonrational leap of faith.” Erickson, PTF, 67.
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POST-MODERNISM
• Chronologically a development beyond the rational worldview fostered by the Enlightenment
• Represents a dissolving of an orderly, structured view of reality
• Represents the abandonment of a “metanarrative” and the embracing, instead, of many stories (in community)
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POST-MODERNISM
• Is thoroughly anti-foundationalist and suspicious of the objectivity of knowledge
• Rejects the secularized notion of progress (a Christian heresy) and questions whether knowledge is “good”
• Embraces ways of knowing, other than by reason; e.g., intuition, experience, feelings
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POST-MODERNISM: Impact
• Ideas have legs! It is impossible to understand postmodernism without noting its impact on our culture
• What begins in the ethereal realm of the academy eventually show up in popular culture– The Arts– Architecture– Literature
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POST-MODERNISM: the Arts
• Blue Man Group: Music and Performance Art
• Warhol, Christo
• Karen Finley
• Robert Mapplethorpe
• Andres Serrano
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POST-MODERNISM: the Arts
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
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POST-MODERNISM: Film/ TV
• Field of Dreams (from the book, Shoeless Joe)
• Groundhog Day
• Pulp Fiction
• Seinfeld, “a show about nothing”
• Jackass (MTV)
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POST-MODERNISM: Architecture
ModernPostmodern
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POST-MODERNISM: Architecture
• Disney Hall, Los Angeles, CA
• Shopping Malls
• Theme Parks
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POST-MODERNISM: Literature
• Jacques Derrida, poster child for Deconstructionist Postmodernism
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APOLOGETICS